In recent years, wireless technologies have been demanding higher data throughput rates and lower latencies. One common application that drives this demand is video rendering on mobile devices (also referred to as “User Equipment” or simply “UE”). Carrier aggregation and multi-RAT (Radio Access Technology) capabilities have been introduced to help address the need for higher data rates demanded by such applications and other services that use large amounts of data. Carrier aggregation may allow operators to offload some of their data traffic to secondary cells (e.g., transmitted on secondary component carriers). The use of multi-RAT technologies, such as RAT aggregation, may allow reception and/or transmission over multiple RATs, e.g., simultaneously. Such RATs that may be used together may include Long Term Evolution (LTE) used with Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), LTE used with WiFi, etc. In such aggregation approaches an evolved Node B (eNB) and a UE may communicate over multiple parallel paths.
Various digital video compression technologies have been developed to assist with efficient digital video communication, distribution, and consumption. Widely deployed standards include International Telecommunication Union (ITU) coding standards such as H.261, H.263, and H.264, as well as other standards such as MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 part2, and MPEG-4 part 10 Advanced Video Coding (AVC). Another video coding standard, High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), has been developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG) and the International Organization for Standardization/International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). The HEVC standard may achieve twice the compression efficiency as that possible using H.264 and MPEG-4 part 10 AVC. Thus, in terms of bandwidth utilization, HEVC requires half the bit rate of H.264 or MPEG-4 part 10 AVC, while providing the same or similar video quality.
As the use of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablets, etc., increases, there is a corresponding increased demand for video content and services over wireless networks. Thus, mobile devices of widely varying capabilities in terms of computing power, memory, storage size, display resolution, display frame rate, display color gamut, etc. will be expected to accommodate video consumption to be successful in today's mobile device market. Likewise, the wireless network with which such devices communicate will also be expected to accommodate video services and other bandwidth intensive services and applications.